Aleksander Tivodar - Bone sculptures

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Katie Eary S/S 10

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other collections
I was researching more into bones and skeletons within fashion and I came across Katie Eary's Spring/Summer 2010 collection which I find quite amazing. The bones and skeletons, which usually look quite delicate, are made to look rich, strong and almost like armour by being gold and connected by chains. Also the torn tights the models are made to wear on their arms and legs have images of bones and veins and make the models look like walking skeletons. Although, the fragility of these tights, highlighted by the fact they are ripped and have holes in, contrasts vastly with the strong gold skeletal pieces and the thick, bright red rope shoulder pieces.

DSquared2's skeletal shoes

I've found that some of my most successful pieces came about due to accidents. For example the feathers dipped in ink and wax. I originally tried finger knitting usinf the feathers as a substitute for fingers to try and connect them in a type of spine (like a matchstick one I did) but once I pulled the strings, all the feathers gathered in a bundle. I had some paint ink open on my desk so I just played around, then dipped it in wax and it turned out really effective. Morbid but intriuging at the same time (much like the chicken feet). The shape of the feathers almost resemble a claw or bird foot too. I decided to make this on a larger scale, so I did, although even though I used about 10 bags of feathers, it wasn't as big as I hoped for. If I had more time (and money) I would have liked to have created one on an even bigger scale although carrying it into college would have proven even more difficult...

Finger knitting using three lengths of string.

A type of knotting, I was inspired by the old Scoubidou's we used to make as children, but the simple butterfly technique looks really effective with thick rope.
Finger knitting with the thick rope, I had to use bottles as a substitute for fingers, the difference in scale between the thread knits and this one is quite vast.

Bone Collecting

After collecting a range of bones of all different sizes, I experiemented with them seen as this was the first time I had used them as a material in this project. I tried to emboss the shape of the bones into a piece of leather using the iron which turned out unsuccessful as the bones were not strong enough to make a big impact (shape-wise) onto the leather. Also it was really awkward trying to get an even amount of heat as the surface was bumpy. Some of the bones I combined with the finger-knitting I had done, sticking the mini-knit onto the bone to create a spine and stuffing a thicker-knit into a lamb bone and having it pour out. After I showed these at the crit a while back, I was recommended to make the smaller bones more precious, almost jewellery-like.

A little while ago Niamh and Emily showed a few of us how to finger-knit. It's really simple to do and although it's limited (you can only do it on one hand, using four fingers which means the width is the same and always quite narrow) I thought it resembled a skeleton spine. I experimented with scale at first, using sewing thread instead of thicker yarn and pins instead of fingers. The outcome was really interesting, they looked like tiny delicate spines or a group of worms and insects. The problem was, finger-knitting on such a small scale meant that the process was very intricate, it was time-consuming and often I would loop the wrong thread or one part would come undone by itself. These difficulties became less problematic after I had done a few and got used to it.
I decided to make it into a structure, covering them in PVA over a balloon. Although it's sturdier, it's still quite delicate.

I've looked more into the idea of bone and skeletons for this project. Bone is one of the many things that connect humans to animals, we may look different on the outiside but inside we all have some kind bone, skeletal structure.

John Stezaker Exhibition @ Whitechapel Gallery

Some drawings I did at the Natural History Museum:

messing about, developing shapes.

Using photos I took at the NHM of animals and magazine images of people, I created photo-collages inspired by John Stezaker's work. I tried to work images of inanimate objects in with the animal/human collages but there's so much imagery to use with animals alone. The majority of the animal imagery is more interesting texturally and visually than images I've gathered of contrasting inanimate objects such as buildings and furniture.

I developed some of my photo-collages into patterns and then used ink to re-create the Rorshach ink blot tests.